WEBVTT - RERELEASE: S1E2: Will the Real Evil Empire Please Stand Up? 0:00:04.800 --> 0:00:07.320 All right, we're back, and as I mentioned last week, 0:00:07.760 --> 0:00:10.600 we're coming at you with episode two of our first 0:00:10.640 --> 0:00:14.600 season of Snapfoo, all about Able Archer eighty three, the 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:19.680 NATO military exercise that almost started a real nuclear war. 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:22.160 Last week you met some of our main characters and 0:00:22.280 --> 0:00:25.079 heard about nineteen eighties America where at tension with the 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:29.320 Soviets was just a fact of everyday life. And we 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:32.559 heard about a dauntless sleuth trying to unearth the secret 0:00:32.640 --> 0:00:37.640 CIA files that hold the entire Able Archer story. Now 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:40.319 in episode two, we get into the two men at 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:42.680 the center of it all, just trying to keep it 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:47.440 all together, and by that I mean avoid nuclear armageddon. I'm, 0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:51.840 of course referring to Ronald Reagan. Yeah, that's my Ronald 0:00:51.880 --> 0:00:56.560 Reagan impression. Not good, Ronald Reagan and his counterpart in 0:00:56.560 --> 0:01:00.600 the Soviet Union Uri and drop off it back and 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:05.119 to enjoy Snapoo Season one, Episode two, Will the real 0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:14.040 Evil Empire please stand up? You know what's unsettling thinking 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:16.720 about how easy it would be to push the nuclear button, 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:19.560 you know the one, the big red button. Nukes go 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:24.240 flying and millions of people instantaneously evaporate. You know, you 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:27.800 shouldn't but you still kind of want to push it. 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:31.080 It's right there, that button. 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:32.240 Button pushing. 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:35.280 It gets so much easier to talk of how many 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:38.840 tens of millions of deaths are acceptable when. 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:39.800 One is removed from it. 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:43.759 This guy gets it the idea that a simple flinch 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:47.440 of a presidential finger could cause so much destruction. It 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:53.160 feels too easy to clean. Okay, there's not really a 0:01:53.160 --> 0:01:55.800 big red button. That's a myth. The truth is the 0:01:55.840 --> 0:01:58.400 nuclear war plans live in a briefcase that follows the 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:02.160 US president wherever they go. The codes are always on hand, 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:04.760 written on a small card in the president's pocket, like 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:07.320 your gym membership card. You've always got it on you 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:11.400 and you never use it. But it's still relatively easy, 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:14.360 because the process of launching a nuclear weapon is still 0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:18.680 a million miles removed from the real cost millions of 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:23.000 human lives. In the nineteen eighties, people were pondering this problem, 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:25.400 how to make the weight of pushing that button just 0:02:25.480 --> 0:02:28.040 a little bit heavier. People like Roger Fisher. 0:02:28.280 --> 0:02:31.359 Roger Fisher, who is a law professor at Harvard or 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:35.359 I can't remember which, had a fantasy about how one 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:37.520 could overcome this button pushing. 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:40.840 Distance Fisher was a professor at Harvard, not Yale, but anyway, 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:45.640 he proposed an idea. What if he said, the nuclear 0:02:45.720 --> 0:02:48.400 codes weren't in a briefcase. What if the codes were 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:51.720 actually in a little capsule, and that capsule was buried 0:02:51.760 --> 0:02:54.720 in the chest of a volunteer, let's call him Fred. 0:02:56.000 --> 0:02:58.680 Instead of carrying around the briefcase with the codes inside, 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:01.560 imagine Fred carrying around a big, heavy butcher knife. 0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:04.400 And if the President needed the codes, he would have 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:07.840 to retrieve them from the volunteer and would hand the President. 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:11.200 To knife Fred. I'm sorry, buddy, but I gotta heck 0:03:11.240 --> 0:03:15.320 your chest open. Fred's freaking out. The Commander in Chief 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:18.120 is forced to then physically butcher good old Fred with 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:21.040 his own hands in order to then kill millions. 0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:23.880 When he told this to his friends in the Pentagon, 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:30.840 they were aghast. Blood on the White House carpet. They 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:32.400 said he might never push the button. 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:37.920 Precisely, much to his dismay, Roger Fisher's fantasy was just 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:41.160 that earth destroying power still rests in a briefcase that 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:45.200 follows the president wherever they go. To me, it makes 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:49.240 the prospect of launching a nuclear weapon a terrifying psychological dilemma. 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:52.400 What will it really take to push a man so 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:56.480 far that he'd press that button, that he'd prompt the 0:03:56.640 --> 0:04:02.000 end of the world? Ibat Helms and This is Snaffo, 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:06.000 a podcast about history's greatest screw ups. In season one, 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:08.240 we're telling the story of Able Archer eighty three, the 0:04:08.320 --> 0:04:11.920 nineteen eighty three NATO military exercise that became a snaffo 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:17.080 so gigantic, so absurd, so terrifying that it almost led 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:42.479 to a real nuclear war. In order to trace what 0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:44.880 happened during Able Archer eighty three, we need to get 0:04:44.880 --> 0:04:46.920 to know the players at the heart of this story. 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:50.880 This episode will follow the two powerful men behind the 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:55.800 proverbial big red buttons, US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet 0:04:55.839 --> 0:04:59.320 General Secretary Yuri and drop off. There are two men 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:04.040 with political plenty of bravado, and an aptitude for mind games. 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:07.800 The question is would they push each other too far? 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:12.400 How do you do? 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:13.040 Everybody? 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:16.440 Hey there, I'd like to introduce myself, Please do. My 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:20.599 name is Ronald Reagan. This was it, where it all began. 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:23.520 It's the late thirties and a young Ronald Reagan introduces 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:26.599 himself to moviegoers in the trailer for his first film, 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:30.919 Love Is on the Air. Even from the beginning, he 0:05:31.040 --> 0:05:33.400 had that incredible knack for making you feel like he 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:35.840 was talking right to you through the camera. 0:05:36.120 --> 0:05:37.960 A few months ago, I was a sports announcer on 0:05:38.040 --> 0:05:39.040 a radio station in Des. 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:42.800 Moines, Iowa. Back before he was charming political audiences with 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:45.520 his good looks and brilliant smile. Ronald Reagan was a 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:50.120 radio sports announcer in Iowa. Legend has it, sometimes Reagan 0:05:50.160 --> 0:05:52.200 would lose the feed of the game while he was 0:05:52.240 --> 0:05:54.680 live on air, so he would just make up amazing 0:05:54.720 --> 0:05:58.560 plays until the feed came back. But his descriptions were 0:05:58.560 --> 0:06:01.560 so vivid audiences didn't really care whether they were hearing 0:06:01.640 --> 0:06:04.240 about a real game or not. But Reagan knew his 0:06:04.279 --> 0:06:07.520 face was too pretty for radio. He wanted Hollywood, and 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:10.039 in nineteen thirty seven he got the break he was 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:13.480 looking for. One day, I ran into one of these 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:14.600 movie talent scuts. 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:16.360 I think I caught him off guard, because the next 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:17.960 thing I knew, I was taking a screen test for 0:06:18.080 --> 0:06:19.279 Warner Brothers in Hollywood. 0:06:22.920 --> 0:06:25.599 His career didn't exactly take off like a rocket, but 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:28.799 he was working got some good roles in smaller films, 0:06:29.200 --> 0:06:31.040 He even got to play a guy whose legs were 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:34.920 amputated by an angry small town doctor. Good stuff. After 0:06:34.960 --> 0:06:38.080 a few years, it seemed like Reagan was finally headed 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:42.520 for the A List, until a World war inconveniently disrupted 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:43.080 his path. 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:51.880 If some bust some nineteen forty one, a date which 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:54.000 will live in infamy. 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:58.960 The World War two draft called up young, able bodied 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:02.640 American men, including the famous Ones. Even Jimmy Stewart went 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:05.240 off to fly bombers in the war. But Ronald Well, 0:07:05.240 --> 0:07:09.360 he left Hollywood to go nowhere. Yeah, no, he didn't 0:07:09.400 --> 0:07:12.120 actually leave Hollywood at all. Instead of fighting the war 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:15.040 on the front line, he filmed propaganda and training videos 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:17.960 for the army at a movie studio in Culver City, California. 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:19.640 To be fair, the four or five and the ten 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:22.720 intersection is the closest I've ever seen to a war zone. 0:07:22.800 --> 0:07:23.720 But I digress. 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:27.840 So he serves out his time. The war ends, and 0:07:28.680 --> 0:07:33.720 he is very disappointed that the fighting has not fixed 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:35.120 the world. 0:07:35.560 --> 0:07:38.880 This is journalist Seth Rosenfeld. He says that at this 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:42.120 point in time, Reagan's life wasn't going so well. His 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:45.640 relationship was falling apart, his career was faltering, and he 0:07:45.760 --> 0:07:47.760 was looking for a new sense of purpose. 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:52.040 One night, there's a knock on his door, his home 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:57.600 nineteen forty six, and two FBI agents are standing there, 0:07:57.800 --> 0:07:59.960 and they say they have some information that he might 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:00.800 be interested in. 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:03.960 They came want of some findings from me on people 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:05.560 that I had dealt with and so forth. 0:08:06.000 --> 0:08:08.040 By this time, Reagan was a vice president of the 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:12.120 Screen Actors Guild, and the FBI came knocking, Hey, Ronald, 0:08:12.480 --> 0:08:13.520 we could use your help. 0:08:13.840 --> 0:08:17.000 This is about spies of savagers. We're sure as a 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:19.240 former military man, you know all about that. 0:08:19.600 --> 0:08:22.920 Calling Reagan a military man was a bit much. It's 0:08:22.960 --> 0:08:25.800 like calling doctor Pepper a member of the medical establishment. 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:28.080 But you know, I mean, come on, they were buttering 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:32.360 him up. The FBI thought Hollywood communists were brainwashing the 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:37.160 American public by sneaking pro communist propaganda into movies. At first, 0:08:37.160 --> 0:08:39.800 Reagan said no thanks, He wasn't interested in what he 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:42.720 called red baiting. But then the FBI said. 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:44.680 We think you're gonna want to hear what some of 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:46.280 these people are saying about you. 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:51.880 Basically, the commedies are talking about you behind your back. Well, 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:55.200 that got his attention, and there right on his doorstep. 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:58.400 Reagan got his shot at patriotic glory. The FBI offered 0:08:58.480 --> 0:09:01.120 him a chance to enlist in the world's ex great conflict, 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:03.440 the War against the Communists. 0:09:03.679 --> 0:09:07.160 After that meeting, he agreed to become an FBI informer. 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:13.480 He did provide information about colleagues and people who he 0:09:13.600 --> 0:09:16.480 suspected were Unamerican in some way. 0:09:20.480 --> 0:09:23.120 As it happens, the FBI's communist plot story was a 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:24.240 bit exaggerated. 0:09:24.400 --> 0:09:27.920 There's really no evidence that anything like that ever happened. 0:09:28.600 --> 0:09:32.160 Sure, there were people in Hollywood who called themselves communists, 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:35.440 and it's not at all surprising that some of their 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:39.600 politics seeped into their work. But these weren't national traders 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:43.840 in contact with Soviet agents. There was no coordinated plot. 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:46.600 But that wasn't Reagan's takeaway. 0:09:47.320 --> 0:09:50.959 I never got over realizing that I could recognize the signs. 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:54.080 Reagan wasn't just convinced that Communists were his enemies. He 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:56.920 started to believe that every one of his enemies were Communists. 0:09:57.120 --> 0:09:59.120 If someone was against him, it was a sign they 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:02.120 were a pinko for sure. And here's where things get 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:03.439 a little weirder. 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:08.199 Not only was Reagan reporting on somebody who he suspected 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:11.440 somehow might be a communist or a communist sympathizer. But 0:10:11.480 --> 0:10:13.600 he was also reporting on people he didn't. 0:10:13.480 --> 0:10:16.120 Like, get in an argument with Ron at a meeting, 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:18.960 snub and met a party, maybe write a bad review 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:24.440 for his Chimpanzee movie. You just got yourself blacklisted. It 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:27.800 wasn't just Reagan. Everyone was ratting each other out. There 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:30.959 were hearings, public shamings. People were prevented from ever working 0:10:31.000 --> 0:10:34.200 in Hollywood again. Some even ended up serving time in prison. 0:10:34.640 --> 0:10:39.680 It did give me a real understanding of the Communist menace. 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:43.520 If he asked Reagan, he was fighting the good fight. 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:46.520 He was an American hero. Fast forward to the mid fifties, 0:10:46.559 --> 0:10:50.240 Reagan's acting career was sputtering a little, which meant maybe 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:53.040 it was time for a career change, perhaps a leap 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:57.040 from the silver screen to the political podium. Reagan versus 0:10:57.120 --> 0:11:03.600 the Communists coming soon into a political state near you, 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:06.280 Thank you very much. 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:11.880 A group of prominent party members came to me before 0:11:11.920 --> 0:11:16.480 the nineteen sixty six governor race in California and claimed 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:18.040 that I was the only one who could bring the 0:11:18.080 --> 0:11:20.840 party together and win the election. 0:11:23.880 --> 0:11:28.079 California millionaires we're looking for a new candidate, and they 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:31.440 didn't have an obvious one. But they saw him, and 0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:33.680 they saw how he appealed to audiences. 0:11:34.480 --> 0:11:37.760 This is Frankie Fitzgerald. She literally wrote the book on 0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:38.800 Reagan and nukes. 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:41.320 They knew they didn't have to worry too much about 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:44.960 what he actually thought about, because he was a good actor. 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:47.480 He would just he would do what people wanted him 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:47.800 to do. 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:51.240 But they kept after Still, pretty soon Nancy and I 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:54.000 couldn't sleep. We thought, well, what if they're right, then 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:55.920 we live with ourselves if we keep saying no. 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:00.520 Pretty soon, the Hollywood actor Ronald Reagan was the governor 0:12:00.520 --> 0:12:03.280 of California, with his sight set on the White House. 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:08.079 The distinguished guest here, and you ladies and gentlemen who 0:12:08.200 --> 0:12:10.440 I know are looking for a cause around which to 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:15.880 rally am, which I believe we can give them. 0:12:16.120 --> 0:12:19.679 Running for president in nineteen eighty, Reagan gave Americans causes 0:12:19.720 --> 0:12:22.640 to rally around, all right, and in so doing he 0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:25.600 permanently altered the character of the Republican Party. 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:29.880 He didn't have much a support at that point nationally, 0:12:30.840 --> 0:12:34.360 but he went for the South, and the South had 0:12:34.520 --> 0:12:36.680 just turned Republican. 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:43.760 His opponent was Jimmy Carter, the incumbent Democrat, who was 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:46.679 really more of a centrist. So in order to capture votes, 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:51.080 Reagan needed to move to the right, far to the right. 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:55.120 His main thing was Reaganomics, tax cuts, bounced budget, trickle 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:57.920 down economics, all that, and in order to sell the policy, 0:12:57.960 --> 0:13:00.440 he needed a villain, and you could, I'd be pretty 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:01.960 sure it wouldn't be Wall Street. 0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:04.840 In Chicago, they found a woman who holds the record. 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:10.560 She used eighty names, thirty addresses, fifteen telephone numbers to 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:15.079 collect food stamps, social Security veterans, benefits for four non 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:19.760 existent deceased veterans' husbands, as well as welfare. Her tax 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:22.800 free cash income alone has been running one hundred and 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:24.280 fifty thousand dollars a year. 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:28.400 Now, this little anecdote, while tethered to an actual person, 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:32.400 is deeply embellished, and worse, Reagan is using it to 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:37.079 sell a larger myth that is complete horseshit that welfare 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:40.680 queens were running rampant in US society. It was racist, 0:13:40.920 --> 0:13:43.680 and this myth has never really gone away. It's a 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:47.160 nasty old political trick, scaring the voters straight into the 0:13:47.200 --> 0:13:50.080 voting booth, and when it came to the Cold War, 0:13:50.640 --> 0:13:54.160 Ronald Reagan saw an opportunity for a new villain, one 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:57.120 he knew very well, the Communists. 0:13:57.480 --> 0:14:00.640 So that was when Reagan began to move to the 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:03.040 right on national security issues. 0:14:05.200 --> 0:14:09.720 Reagan did take a very strong line on building up 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:11.040 US defenses. 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:13.280 That's nuclear expert Jeffrey Lewis. 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:15.840 Reagan was hawkish in a way that alarmed not just 0:14:15.880 --> 0:14:19.359 Democrats but many mainline Republicans. 0:14:19.800 --> 0:14:23.080 Reagan was hawkish, but he didn't actually want to fight 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:25.680 a nuclear war. In the same breath that he spoke 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:28.680 about building more weapons, he always talked about how awful 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:31.120 a nuclear war would be. He said he dreamed of 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:35.320 a day with no nuclear weapons. A bit confusing, I know, 0:14:35.440 --> 0:14:37.960 but the idea was this, in order to maintain mad 0:14:38.200 --> 0:14:41.800 mutually assured destruction, the US needed to match the Soviet's 0:14:41.840 --> 0:14:44.920 nuclear strength. That would be the only way to keep 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:48.800 us all safe, and that's what's known as peace through strength. 0:14:49.240 --> 0:14:54.400 Reagan really painted himself as a person who was going 0:14:54.440 --> 0:14:56.160 to be strong and who was going to stand up 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:58.640 to the Soviet Union in a way that Jimmy Carter 0:14:59.080 --> 0:14:59.400 did not. 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:02.520 In reality, Jimmy Carter was not at all soft on 0:15:02.560 --> 0:15:04.800 the Soviets. I mean, this is the president who pulled 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:07.960 the US out of the Moscow Olympics. He wouldn't even 0:15:08.000 --> 0:15:11.600 share the beauty of rhythmic gymnastics with the Soviets. But 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:14.960 the truth didn't really matter. Reagan had a political story 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:18.920 to sell. The evil Communists are threatening the American way 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:22.040 of life, and we're too weak to stop them. Hey, 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:22.600 vote for me. 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:26.960 Somewhere along the ways, a fantasy got mixed up with reality. 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:29.920 That is to say, if you're an actor, it does 0:15:30.160 --> 0:15:30.920 to some degree. 0:15:31.160 --> 0:15:34.880 Oouch, Frankie, that hurts, But I guess it's fair. I 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:37.560 still think The Hangover is a documentary, and do not 0:15:37.680 --> 0:15:42.720 try to convince me otherwise. Well, the time has come. 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:48.680 Ronald Wilson Reagan of California, a sports announcer of film actor. 0:15:49.200 --> 0:15:51.760 We have projected Ronald Reagan the winner. 0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:55.000 You hear the subtle incredulity in his voice. How about 0:15:55.040 --> 0:15:57.080 a little less subtle incredulity. 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:01.080 Who's President of the United States nineteen eighty five? 0:16:01.840 --> 0:16:03.600 Ronald Reagan? Ronald Reagan. 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:07.680 Suffice to say, Doc wasn't the only person who was 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:10.760 surprised over in Moscow. The Soviets were trying to get 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:13.840 a read on this new Hollywood president, but they also 0:16:13.880 --> 0:16:16.760 had their hands full with a leadership shakeup of their own. 0:16:28.480 --> 0:16:32.720 Good evening. Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet Communist Party leader and president, 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:35.480 died yesterday morning of a heart attack, but the news 0:16:35.520 --> 0:16:35.880 was nominal. 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:38.560 In the Soviet Union. Nineteen eighty two ended with the 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:42.560 bang of a coffin. Lid Reshnev was dead and his 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:45.240 successor emerged from the shadows. 0:16:45.720 --> 0:16:49.640 Yuri Andropov, former chief of the KGB or secret police, 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:52.680 was named chairman of the funeral committee, possibly a sign 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:54.440 that he could succeed as party leader. 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:58.160 When Leonid Brezhnev died at the end of nineteen eighty two, 0:16:58.440 --> 0:17:01.640 Yuri and Dropoff, former head of the KGB, stepped up 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:04.600 to become the leader of the Soviet Union. Yeah, the 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:08.280 head of the KGB took over that KGB. Mm hmm, 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:13.520 Russian secret beliefs, political assassinations, midnight arrests, domestic surveillance, ring 0:17:13.560 --> 0:17:16.000 a bell. So believe me when I say the news 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:19.480 of and Dropoff's appointment sent a chill up every spine 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:23.760 in Washington. Suddenly everyone was scrambling to learn something, anything 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:26.679 about their new adversary. But the stories that were emerging 0:17:26.680 --> 0:17:30.200 about and drop Off, they were all over the fucking place. 0:17:30.680 --> 0:17:33.399 Some said he spent his youth as a boatman or 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:36.520 a film projectionist. Others say Stalin almost killed him in 0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:39.600 the Soviet Purge, or that he was the mastermind behind 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:42.199 the Berlin Wall, or that he plotted the death of 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:45.400 the Pope. It was difficult to get a sense of him, 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:48.640 to figure out what was true biography and what was lore. 0:17:49.240 --> 0:17:52.679 What people were left with were mostly just photographs. His 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:56.199 icy white hair was always combed back just so, the 0:17:56.359 --> 0:17:59.439 thick black rim of his glasses kind of merging with 0:17:59.480 --> 0:18:04.639 his wilen the eyebrows, his face always entirely expressionless, not 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:08.199 giving a damn thing away about what he's thinking. So, 0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:10.320 when it comes down to it, as you might expect 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:14.520 from mckagb man, Urian Dropov was a total mystery. 0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:21.520 Urian Dropov is I think one of the most interesting 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:23.080 Soviet leaders. 0:18:23.520 --> 0:18:25.960 This is Simon Miles, a Cold War historian. 0:18:26.359 --> 0:18:31.600 So Andropov was definitely a man of the system. As 0:18:31.640 --> 0:18:36.960 we say, he started his career in the Party and 0:18:37.080 --> 0:18:39.000 he finished his career in the Party. 0:18:39.400 --> 0:18:41.879 It was actually more complicated than it sounds, because throughout 0:18:41.920 --> 0:18:44.840 the middle of the twentieth century the party was constantly 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:48.800 shape shifting, as were its rules, norms, and expectations. So 0:18:49.040 --> 0:18:51.000 to remain in the party's good graces for so many 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:54.640 years was a feat all its own. He's a remarkable man. 0:18:54.920 --> 0:18:59.359 I read his speeches very carefully. He managed always to 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:02.840 be a center whatever it meant to be a centrist 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:06.359 at that particular moment a great master of political maneuver, 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:07.520 and drop. 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:10.680 Off rose through the ranks of Soviet politics, slowly gaining 0:19:10.720 --> 0:19:14.600 more and more power and eventually demonstrating a particular talent 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:16.200 for brutal policing. 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:21.320 You became head of the KGB in nineteen sixty seven. 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:24.920 This is historian Douglas Salvage, who specializes in the history 0:19:24.960 --> 0:19:27.280 of Soviet secret police and propaganda. 0:19:27.800 --> 0:19:31.240 Once I Dropoff took over the KGB, he began to 0:19:31.800 --> 0:19:35.480 issue new regulations, push for new laws, new ways to 0:19:35.560 --> 0:19:39.720 prosecute people for anti Soviet agitation or propaganda. 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:43.880 As head of the KGB, it was like in drop 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:49.040 Off became a twisted Soviet Santa. Through his staggering surveillance network. 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:51.720 He sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake, 0:19:51.840 --> 0:19:54.120 he knows if you've been bad or good, So holy shit, 0:19:54.280 --> 0:19:57.080 you better be good. This was a naughty list you 0:19:57.160 --> 0:19:58.399 did not want to be on. 0:19:58.840 --> 0:20:03.240 He actually created a new division within the KGB responsible 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:08.680 practically just for suppressing internal dissent, one that was especially 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:12.000 dealing with intellectuals or people who had contacts to Western 0:20:12.119 --> 0:20:13.159 journalists of the West. 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:16.600 One story goes that when he was hiring someone new 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:20.240 for his KGB office, he didn't bother to interview anyone. 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:23.240 One candidate said, let me tell you about myself, to 0:20:23.240 --> 0:20:26.440 which and drop Off replied, my dear boy, what makes 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:30.520 you think I don't already know everything about you? Yeah, 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:33.600 the British accent's mine. I was taking creative license. I 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:36.040 just thought it sounded more kind of like a movie villain, 0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:38.680 because that's kind of what he is, right, I mean, 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:41.240 this dude was freaking scary. All you had to do 0:20:41.400 --> 0:20:44.320 was sing the wrong protest song and you'd get scooped 0:20:44.359 --> 0:20:46.399 up by and Dropov's trash collectors. 0:20:46.840 --> 0:20:52.840 He is having Soviet dissidents sent to statemental facilities. 0:20:53.680 --> 0:20:56.320 Of course, if you're diagnosed with h there was this 0:20:56.440 --> 0:21:00.800 special diagnosis sluggish schizophrenia. It's very is even harder to 0:21:00.800 --> 0:21:02.840 get out of a mental hospital than to get out 0:21:02.840 --> 0:21:03.360 of prison. 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:08.200 He was a perpetrator of some really horrible things. 0:21:10.480 --> 0:21:13.280 And yet in nineteen eighty two, as he stepped into 0:21:13.320 --> 0:21:16.560 the role of Soviet leader, rumors began floating around about 0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:21.200 and drop off that he loved Western art, literature, folk music, 0:21:21.520 --> 0:21:22.800 a real renaissance man. 0:21:23.760 --> 0:21:25.879 So at the same time as he's sending these people 0:21:26.160 --> 0:21:31.919 to statemental facilities, he's happily sitting around a fireside in 0:21:31.960 --> 0:21:36.200 the Caucasus mountains with the head of the local Communist party, 0:21:36.359 --> 0:21:40.040 singing their songs and playing them on a guitar and 0:21:40.160 --> 0:21:42.960 roasting sausages on sticks and things like that. 0:21:43.800 --> 0:21:47.040 There seems to be some controversy about Andropov. There's a 0:21:47.080 --> 0:21:51.960 suggestion that some of his political aids leaked through the 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:55.320 Western press what some are calling disinformation about his being 0:21:55.359 --> 0:21:58.159 a closet liberal, a man who likes Western art, is 0:21:58.200 --> 0:22:00.960 a very urbane intellectual. What is your review of him? 0:22:01.040 --> 0:22:03.160 Part of it is the complexity of the man himself. 0:22:03.200 --> 0:22:07.399 I think complexity that's the best they could do on 0:22:07.480 --> 0:22:10.199 good old PBS back in nineteen eighty two. Throw their 0:22:10.200 --> 0:22:11.840 hands up in the air and just kind of shrug 0:22:12.760 --> 0:22:14.400 goes the show. When it comes to and drop Off, 0:22:14.480 --> 0:22:17.159 everything you learn about him should have an asterisk and 0:22:17.240 --> 0:22:19.920 a little footnote that says maybe and. 0:22:19.920 --> 0:22:22.280 Drop Off is ultimately a mystery in this because he 0:22:22.320 --> 0:22:24.040 turns out to be an old sick man dying. 0:22:24.400 --> 0:22:26.119 Oh yeah, one more thing you should know about Uri 0:22:26.200 --> 0:22:28.040 and drop Off. When he became the leader of the 0:22:28.040 --> 0:22:31.840 Soviet Union, he was practically on his deathbed from kidney failure. 0:22:32.160 --> 0:22:34.120 Keep in mind, if you complained about the Soviet Union 0:22:34.160 --> 0:22:35.919 too much, he'd probably have you and your family murdered. 0:22:35.920 --> 0:22:38.520 But yes, he'd kill you then sing songs at your 0:22:38.520 --> 0:22:42.560 funeral permission. Did not feel bad for him. So here's 0:22:42.600 --> 0:22:45.159 where we are. In one corner, we've got Ronald Reagan, 0:22:45.200 --> 0:22:48.520 newly elected American cowboy who does not keep his distaste 0:22:48.520 --> 0:22:50.840 for the Communists on the down low, campaigned on the 0:22:50.840 --> 0:22:53.919 promise of building more weapons. And in the other corner, 0:22:54.240 --> 0:22:57.280 Uri and drop Off, who nobody really knows anything about 0:22:57.400 --> 0:23:00.400